Al Jazeera Islamabad bureau chief put on terror list by US

A veteran journalist who has interviewed Osama bin Laden and for years managed Al Jazeera’s news bureau in Islamabad, Pakistan, has been put on terrorist list by the United States, according to new documents.

Top-secret national security documents obtained by The Intercept through former National
Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden show that Ahmad Muaffaq
Zaidan was the subject of American surveillance as recently as
2012.

In June of that year, the NSA produced a classified presentation
in which Zaidan appears listed as a member of both Al-Qaeda and
the Muslim Brotherhood.

Beneath his alleged affiliation with those groups, the NSA notes
Zaidan also “works for Al Jazeera.” In the same slide,
though, it also knows that the journalist is listed in TIDE: the
“Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment” database maintained
by the US.

Speaking to The Intercept ahead of the outlet’s report on the
slideshow, published Friday, Zaidan “absolutely” denied
any membership with either Al-Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood,
but acknowledged that his lengthy career in journalism has
required him to view controversial figures throughout Afghanistan
and Pakistan. Indeed, Zaidan interviewed bin Laden, the former
Al-Qaeda leader, twice before the September 11, 2001 terror
attacks and was later provided audio recordings through an
apparent courier containing messages from the terrorist.

“For us to be able to inform the world, we have to be able to
freely contact relevant figures in the public discourse, speak
with people on the ground and gather critical information. Any
hint of government surveillance that hinders this process is a
violation of press freedom and harms the public’s right to
know,” Zaidan told The Intercept. “To assert that
myself, or any journalist, has any affiliation with any group on
account of their contact book, phone call logs, or sources is an
absurd distortion of the truth and a complete violation of the
profession of journalism.”

He's known for interviewing the group's leadership, but "by
that standard any journalist who spent time with Al Qaeda would
be suspect.”

A spokesman for Al Jazeera told The Intercept that the revelation
concerning surveillance of Zaidan demonstrates “yet another
attempt at using questionable techniques to target our
journalists” and amounts to “a gross breach of press
freedom.”

According to The Intercept, the NSA slides that provide the
fodder for their latest article relate to a US program named
SKYNET. Through that endeavor, the intelligence community takes
the metadata of phone call records already collected in bulk and
analyzes them to infer suspicious activity.

In a statement, the Committee to Protect Journalists said it was
“deeply troubled” by the Intercept’s report, with Bob
Dietz, CPJ’s Asia program coordinator, adding: “Coloring the
legitimate newsgathering activities of a respected journalist as
evidence of international terrorism risks chilling the vital work
of the media.”

The slides published on Friday show that the NSA believed Zaidan
was likely a member of Al Qaeda given that his movements, as
revealed through metadata, resembled that of couriers used by the
terrorist group. In the US, meanwhile, a federal appeals court
ruled Thursday that the NSA was never authorized to collect
metadata of American-placed phone calls pursuant to the
government’s interpretation of a Patriot Act provision, also
revealed through Snowden.